I'm just starting out in school learning web design. I've used Text Wrangler in the past but not for html. Is there a better text editor out there for html, css, etc.?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
best text editor for html
- Thread starter edmund_dunn
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I use Coda from the guys at panic.com (http://panic.com/coda/) and I love it. Well worth considering.
I think Brackets is a cool starter..
It's free, open source and the fun part is, the app is also created on top of web based standards like CSS and JavaScript.
If you really like creating websites after a while you can always upgrade to paid apps like Coda if needed.
http://brackets.io/
It's free, open source and the fun part is, the app is also created on top of web based standards like CSS and JavaScript.
If you really like creating websites after a while you can always upgrade to paid apps like Coda if needed.
http://brackets.io/
Thank you for the feedback. I'm going with Brackets for now. Once I'm in more advanced classes I may switch.
Brackets is awesome, I use it all of the time on PC since it's one of the few live editors for PC that works well with CSS.
BBEdit (http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/)
Coda (https://panic.com/coda/)
Sublime (https://www.sublimetext.com/)
Brackets (http://brackets.io/) - Free!
All great. There will always be many features that overlap but a few that are only available in one or another. For example, BBEdit has great grep and multi-file search and replace, has support for massive files, has a built-in diff GUI, but does not have multiple-cursors. Brackets is free and works great for most web development but has no diff tool and is built in JavaScript and therefore doesn't always feel like a native application. I don't use Sublime but it looks like a powerful and flexible editor. Coda is an extremely polished, native Mac application that has plenty of eye candy and even a SSH/SFTP client built-in.
So, you'll need to decide upon what features are important to you and then compare the feature sets of a few editors. It can't hurt to start with Brackets and investigate the others as you have time.
Coda (https://panic.com/coda/)
Sublime (https://www.sublimetext.com/)
Brackets (http://brackets.io/) - Free!
All great. There will always be many features that overlap but a few that are only available in one or another. For example, BBEdit has great grep and multi-file search and replace, has support for massive files, has a built-in diff GUI, but does not have multiple-cursors. Brackets is free and works great for most web development but has no diff tool and is built in JavaScript and therefore doesn't always feel like a native application. I don't use Sublime but it looks like a powerful and flexible editor. Coda is an extremely polished, native Mac application that has plenty of eye candy and even a SSH/SFTP client built-in.
So, you'll need to decide upon what features are important to you and then compare the feature sets of a few editors. It can't hurt to start with Brackets and investigate the others as you have time.
I've been using BBEdit for many years and like it. Is there a good reason to explore Sublime or Coda?
impo I would use MacVim or VIM ... its OpenSource, has tons of enhancements like linting and available on any Unix like system.
I use it everyday as a Full Stack Engineer and do a bit of coding on the side.
It does have a little bit of a learning curve but if you learn it then you wont need use your mouse as much when editing which will really speed up your dev process.
I use it everyday as a Full Stack Engineer and do a bit of coding on the side.
It does have a little bit of a learning curve but if you learn it then you wont need use your mouse as much when editing which will really speed up your dev process.
I agree. Why pay $70 for a text editor when the OpenSource community offers great free alternatives.
I've been a happy user of BBEdit for years (and still am) but multiple cursors and live multiple select and replace is an awesome feature of Brackets (and Sublime). You can certainly accomplish the same with BBEdit's powerful search and replace (with grep) but it's just doesn't seem as efficient and flexible. Therefore, I find myself switching between both regularly depending on which one feels best for a particular task.
What he said. I use vim for everything. I've tried other editors and IDEs over the years but I always come back to vim.
Lots of good suggestions here (apart from vim*) - just like to to throw Netbeans (free) into the ring: being cross platform its not as slick and Mac-like as some of the others, but it has lots of HTML/CSS/Javascript features and, if you download the 'HTML/Javascript' flavour it will be nicely configured for web development. I find Atom, Sublime etc. come at the expense of ages sifting through third-party plugins to get the features you want (could be solved if someone produced pre-configured bundles for various applications, as has been done with Netbeans and Eclipse).
*Seriously guys, vim (a version of vi which was an absolutely brilliant improvement over the card punch) works in a totally different way to any other text editor written in the last 25 years and unless you've been the 1980s it will drive you nuts, especially if you are switching between it and "regular" text editors. Don't get me wrong: if you did learn it at your mother's knee and can think in regular expressions and (probably) are a trained touch typist then it can be really efficient... you know, a bit like this competitions where some ancient asian guy who has been using an abacus for 70 years outperforms a middle manager from Casio who's been using a calculator for 5 minutes.
Obligatory car analogy:
For USA readers: vim = stick shift
For UK/EU readers: vim = crash gearbox & double-declutching
(both of which have their applications...)
Lately I've been using Spacemacs, which is emacs+evilmode and a bunch of other extensions bundled in a nice package that's more finger-friendly than plain emacs. And you don't have to do as much work in the configuration to make it useful.
I personally use Coda and I love it, but I also use Atom.io which can handle heavier files with ease. I am however considering Sublime Text.
Download and use all the top rated IDEs and Text Editors and decide what offers you the most. Writing code in your preferred tool is VERY subjective, and you see not everyone posting is saying the same app. The other important part, you want to find the tool, that fits you best and master it. Using 1, 2 and even 3 editors is extremely inefficient, try them all, stick to one, master it = win win and more win.
Last edited:
Thanks all for the ideas and sharing. I am currently suing Atom for text. I just like the feel of it. Nothing like the Borland C++ I used years ago in high school! 